It’s that time again!
We’re crowdsourcing a list of recommendations for this year’s awards. Please do add to this list with some of your favorite texts that were published in 2023. You don’t need to be a BSFA member: anyone can send their recommendations, so do share widely.
We look forward to celebrating another year of science fiction excellence!
Two news items. First, the BSFA Awards longlists are out today. BSFA members can vote for the shortlists here (or check your January newsletter for a link). See also Nicholas Whyte’s heroic work enriching the list with hyperlinks and raising some eligibility queries (which will be reflected in the official list soon).
Second, Fission, the new annual fiction anthology from the BSFA, will shortly open to submissions. Editors Eugen Bacon and Gene Rowe say:
We’re excited to read your original science fiction stories (genre benders welcome)! The submissions window opens at midnight on 1 February, and closes at 11:59 pm on 15 March. Please submit to fission@bsfa.co.uk and put “Fission #2 submission” in the subject header. We invite original stories of up to 5,000 words, and offer a contributor payment rate of 2 pence per word. You don’t need to be a BSFA member to submit. We will also be inviting submissions for cover art.
Members of the BSFA and those registered for ConFusion 2021 — this year’s Eastercon — should receive a digital copy of the BSFA Awards 2020 Booklet together with a link to the ballot form when voting opens. All BSFA members were emailed on Monday, March 1st, 2021. If you are a member of the BSFA but have not received a ballot email, please contact Luke Nicklin, our membership officer: membership@bsfa.co.uk. Voting will close at noon on the day the awards ceremony is held (likely to be Saturday 3 April; watch this space for confirmation).
A physical copy of the awards booklet will be mailed later this month to members of the BSFA, together with Vector #293.
The BSFA Awards will be presented at ConFusion, which will be held online 2-5th April 2021. A list of nominees is found here.
The British Science Fiction Association is delighted to announce the shortlist of nominees for the 2020 BSFA Awards. The BSFA Awards have been presented annually since 1970. The current categories have been in place since 2001. The awards are voted on by members of the British Science Fiction Association and by the members of the year’s Eastercon, the national science fiction convention, held since 1955. This year Eastercon, ConFusion, will be held online 2nd-5th April 2021, where the winners will be announced.
The BSFA Awards ceremony will be free to attend for all BSFA members, all members of Eastercon, and all shortlisted nominees: details will be released closer to the date. Members of the BSFA will additionally receive a PDF with excerpts of many of the nominated works in advance of the convention, and a physical copy of the Awards Booklet at a later date. If you are not currently a member of the BSFA and are interested in joining, please visit the main BSFA site.
Best Artwork
Fangorn, Covers of Robot Dreams series, NewCon Press.
Iain Clark, Shipbuilding Over the Clyde, Art for Glasgow in 2024 WorldCon bid.
Nani Walker, Four Black Lives Matter Murals in AR. Using drone photogrammetry, Nani Sahra Walker produced 3-D models of four Black Lives Matter murals as memorials to George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others killed by police. Published by the Los Angeles Times in collaboration with RYOT and reported by Dorany Pineda.
The virtual artworks can be accessed at www.yahoo.com/immersive/blm-murals.html?site=latimes.
Best Short Fiction (under 40,000 words)
Eugen M. Bacon, Ivory’s Story, Newcon Press.
Anne Charnock, ‘All I Asked For,’ Fictions, Healthcare and Care Re-Imagined. Edited by Keith Brookes, at Future Care Capital.
Dilman Dila, ‘Red_Bati’, Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction From Africa and the African Diaspora, Aurelia Leo. Edited by Zelda Knight and Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki.
Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, ‘Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon,’ Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction From Africa and the African Diaspora, Aurelia Leo. Edited by Zelda Knight and Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki.
Ida Keogh, ‘Infinite Tea in the Demara Cafe,’ Londoncentric, Newcon Press. Edited by Ian Whates.
Tobi Ogundiran, ‘Isn’t Your Daughter Such a Doll,’ Shoreline of Infinity.
Best Non-Fiction
Francesca T Barbini (ed.), Ties That Bind: Love in Science Fiction and Fantasy, Luna Press.
Paul Kincaid, The Unstable Realities of Christopher Priest, Gylphi Press.
Andrew Milner and J.R. Burgmann, Science Fiction and Climate Change, Liverpool University Press.
Adam Roberts, It’s the End of the World: But What Are We Really Afraid Of?, Elliot & Thompson.
Jo Lindsay Walton, ‘Estranged Entrepreneurs,’ Foundation: the International Review of Science Fiction.
Jo Walton, ‘Books in Which No Bad Things Happen,’ Tor.com.
Please note that the two non-fiction nominees with similar names, Jo Lindsay Walton and Jo Walton, are two different people.
Best Novel
Tiffani Angus, Threading the Labyrinth, Unsung Stories.
Susanna Clarke, Piranesi, Bloomsbury.
M. John Harrison, The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again, Gollancz.
N.K. Jemisin, The City We Became, Orbit.
Gareth L. Powell, Light of Impossible Stars, Titan Books.
Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future, Orbit.
Nikhil Singh, Club Ded, Luna Press.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Doors of Eden, Tor.
Liz Williams, Comet Weather, Newcon Press.
Nick Wood, Water Must Fall, Newcon Press.
Note that there was a multiple tie for fifth place this year. The committee decided that instead of abbreviating the shortlist, all nominees would be included.
Best Novel
WINNER: Children of Ruin, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor)
The Green Man’s Foe, Juliet E. McKenna (Wizard’s Tower)
Atlas Alone, Emma Newman (Gollancz)
Fleet of Knives, Gareth L. Powell (Titan)
The Rosewater Insurrection, Tade Thompson (Orbit)
Best Shorter Fiction
WINNER: This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (Jo Fletcher)
To Be Taught, If Fortunate, Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton)
“Jolene”, Fiona Moore (Interzone 9-10/19)
Ragged Alice, Gareth L. Powell (Tor.com Publishing)
The Survival of Molly Southbourne, Tade Thompson (Tor.com Publishing)
“For Your Own Good”, Ian Whates (Wourism and Other Stories)
Best Non-Fiction
WINNER: The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein, Farah Mendlesohn (Unbound)
Sideways in Time: Critical Essays on Alternate History Fiction, Glyn Morgan & C. Palmer-Patel (eds) (Liverpool University Press)
About Writing, Gareth L. Powell (Luna)
HG Wells: A Literary Life, Adam Roberts (Palgrave Macmillan)
“Away Day: Star Trek and the Utopia of Merit”, Jo Lindsay Walton (Big Echo)
Best Artwork
WINNER: Cover of Wourism and Other Stories by Ian Whates, Chris Baker (Luna)
Cover of Deeplight by Frances Hardinge, Aitch & Rachel Vale (Macmillan)
Cover of Fleet of Knives by Gareth L. Powell, Julia Lloyd (Titan)
Cover of The Rosewater Redemption by Tade Thompson, Charlotte Stroomer (Orbit)
Cover of Interzone 11-12/19, Richard Wagner
The awards were voted on by members of BSFA and the British Annual Science Fiction Convention (Eastercon). Congratulations to all the winners and all the shortlistees.
The BSFA Awards were administered by Awards Administrator Clare Boothby, with help from Allen Stroud, Luke Nicklin, Karen Fishwick, and others.
Earlier / Elsewhere:
Over the past month or so, the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) has been hosting a series of livestream readings from SFF authors in the UK and beyond. We’re calling them the Lockdown Solidarity Salons or, if you prefer, Very Extremely Casual Tales of Optimism and Resilience (VECTOR). Authors, you are all such charmers!
You can find out more about the series on the Facebook page or YouTube channel. We hope you’ll join us this Thursday (8.15pm UK time) for Chinelo Onwualu, Fiona Moore, and on later dates for Naomi Foyle, Lauren Beukes, Temi Oh, Ian R. MacLeod, and more. Here’s Adam Roberts:
See below for Foz Meadows, Stew Hotston, Valerie Valdes, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Malka Older, Tiffani Angus, Stephen Oram, Geoff Ryman, Wole Talabi, and Andrew Wallace. This Sunday, the BSFA will be holding our annual BSFA Awards ceremony (usually held at Eastercon, the UK’s annual national SF convention) on YouTube at 7pm BST.
And of course, we’re not the only ones.
The BSFA Awards 2019 longlist has just dropped. BSFA members have until the end of the month to vote for the shortlist.
If you’re not currently a member, you can join here.
This year, Vector have decided to take our annual SFF round-up online. It’s all here on the website under the tag 2018 Round-Up: reflections and highlights from Nina Allan, Cheryl Morgan, So Mayer, Maureen Kincaid Speller, Nick Lowe, Alison Baker, Tony Jones, Gary Couzens, Dev Agarwal, Andrew Wallace and Molly Cobb on the year gone by.
Speaking of 2018, it’s also BSFA Awards time: we’ve recently announced a splendid longlist of SFF novels, short fiction, non-fiction, artwork, voted on by BSFA members. Voting is now open for the shortlist.
Nominations are now open for the BSFA Awards longlist. If you’re a member, you may nominate up to four works in each of four categories: Novel, Short Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Artwork. If you’re not yet a member, consider joining the BSFA.
Earlier we shared some suggested reading in short fiction and novels. Below is a list of crowdsourced recommendations (in no particular order) for the categories of non-fiction and artwork. You can also still explore (and add to) the suggestions sheet.
Location: The Cellar Bar, The Argyle Public House, 1 Greville Street (off Leather Lane), London EC1N 8PQ
On Wednesday 20th March 2013,* join Donna Scott, BSFA Awards Administrator, for a lively chat all about this year’s BSFA Awards Shortlist. Joining Donna will be:
Duncan Lawie – an SF critic and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He will also be a BSFA representative on the Arthur C Clarke Award judging panel for 2013. Speaking of the event, Duncan says, “I think there are two obvious picks for this year’s BSFA award novel – but I wonder if anyone else will agree which two.”
Anne C. Perry – Assistant Editor at Hodder & Stoughton, commissioning genre titles, co-editor of Pornokitsch and co-founder of The Kitschies Awards.
Jared Shurin, also co-editor of Pornokitsch and co-founder of The Kitschies Awards.
…and Kim Curran – author of thrilling new YA adventure Shift (Strange Chemistry).
ALL WELCOME – FREE ENTRY (Non-members welcome)
The interview will start at 7 pm. We have the room from 6 pm (and if early, fans are in the ground floor bar from 5ish).
There will be a raffle (£1 for five tickets), with a selection of sf novels as prizes.
Map is here. Nearest Tube: Chancery Lane (Central Line).
FUTURE EVENTS:
24th April 2013 – Lavie Tidhar; interviewer TBC
22nd May 2013** – Aliette de Bodard; interviewed by Duncan Lawie
27th June 2013 – Catherynne M. Valente; interviewer TBC
* Note that due to the proximity of Easter to the fourth Wednesday of the month, this meeting will be held on the third Wednesday.
** Note that this is a month with five Wednesdays. The meeting will be on the fourth, not the last, Wednesday of the month.
(Pictures c/o, SFX, Duncan Lawie (Scott Polar Research Institute), Pornokitsch, Kim Curran)
vector-bsfa.com 